Skinning Tut

8/8/2019 Skinning Tut

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Z A N A T H E E L F P R E S E N T S

Poser / DAZ Figure Skinning Guide SKINNING TUTORIAL GIVE UR 3D FIGURES A HIDE

Warning : Please note that some images do contain nudity since you will be working on unclothed things

Tutorial done in the Windows XP Operating System


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ToToToTo: hotlilme74 who requested a tutorial,Mada the faerie cop and Thorne

To all the people of Faerie WyldeAnd all the render byes..With love XXX ..

Zana Elfy

Zana (Danielle C Lamb)8 Hancock Street EshoweSouth Africa

Phone +2773.470.4620 Fax +2735.474.5704Email: [email protected]

Web: http://www.zanainternational.2ya.com


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Table of Contents

C H A P T E R 1

Introduction 1

How to manage your memory 2

Safe refresh rate settings for eyes 10

Managing your workspace for skinning 13

Set up editing Program(s) Workspaces 4

C H A P T E R 2

Creating a Plain Hide 9

Cutting out body parts 10

Making a hide 24

Creating a mat pose file 34

C H A P T E R 3

Changing the plain skin texture colour 38

Creating Tattoos 39

Modifying skin sections 40

Adding effects 41

Other texturing 44

C H A P T E R 4

Summery and Extra Notes 45

Elvin chant for Working Happily 45


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D E S I G N C U S T O M I Z A T I O N

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Introduction

A little introduction is always best, with an extra friendly hello and a hug is the Elvin

greeting to the elf kind (includes faeries)

halom all you render faeries,elves and thingies out there wholove to make custom made skinsfor there Poser/DAZ figures,

which will help you save money from just buying skins and also be able tocreate your own skins , as well asmarket them. I am Zana , the elf yousee in the photo here, so you know whatI look like, and the back is my forestwhere allot of my ideas and creativitycomes from, as I often picture elves andfairies all over the place here and Iincorporate the ideas into my artwork. Ireceived a request to create a tutorialon skinning, and here it is, simple,friendly and nice , and of course easyto read and follow. You may freelydistribute this tutorial all over the globeand galaxy etc and publish it for FREE!Do not sell copies of this tutorial!! If you do I will use my elf crystal to huntyou down and put some of my magical powers to work on you! The programs I am going to coverwill be listed with there program icon, so you know what program I am talking about. The mainprograms I am going to use are Poser 5, DAZ Studio 1, Adobe Photoshop and CorelPhotoshop Paint X, and Corel PhotoPaint which is unfortunately limited, and a lot of manyother photo-paint programs are similar to it, it takes a lot more steps to complete a task, which isnot as good as if they were done in Adobe Photoshop and Corel Paint Shop Pro .

Programs That I will cover

Poser5 DAZ Studio Mat Pose Edit Notepad Corel PSP PhotoPaint Photoshop p3dOExplorer

Please note that Corel Photoshop Paint used to be manufactured by Jasc Software. If you havean old version Photo Shop Paint, version 8 or higher is bets suitable. I will explain different paths

Chapter 1

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and methods of using separateprograms, or a combination of both,so one could get the best benefitsout of using both programs. Also if you dont have any of the photo

editing programs you can use Photo-Gimp and open source applicationand can be obtained for FREE. TheGUI is very similar to AdobePhotoshop; however I never usedPhoto Gimp before, so I cannotguarantee the differences betweenAdobe Photoshop and Photo-Gimp.Please note that screen capturesof the programs will be done inmy own customized version of windows XP called windows PEsince its the most comfortable GUI Ilike to use, and will also make you sharp and alert to see and compare it with the standardwindows XP or MAC OS-X GUI. If you like my GUI you can download it from my deviantart pagewith other resources including a Dana International (my favourite singer) one athttp://www.zananeichan.deviantart.com

How to manage your memoryAs you may know, doing any

computer graphic related tasksrequires memory, such as 3Drendering, 3D modelling, photoediting, and vector graphics all takesmemory. However the usage of memory depends on the size,complexity of the files you are workingwith. The memory allocation for eachcomputer is different, due to the factthere are so many models of computers on the market today, someold and some new, some with differentoperating systems, and some with lotsof add on cards and some which justuse on-board chipset facilities. All PCshave RAM expansion cards DDRs orDIMMs this is your physical memory.Those who have graphics cards alsohave memory for the display of graphics. Those computers who are

using onboard graphics, the Onboard chipset shares the memory of the physical expansion cards,thus chunks of memory are used off the expansion cards, if you have 128MBs for example and


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you have set your chipset to display 64bit graphics, you will have a physical memory allocation of 64Mbs memory!! (128-64= 64). Even when youre physical memory is 128Mbs. My advice is topurchase as much physical memory as possible for what money you have, and use expansiongraphics cards, this will free up the RAM and you will then have 128Mbs Ram like you should, andif you got yourself a 64mbit graphics card, you will have your 64 MB display! . As some people,

cannot just buy hardware, because of there lack of money, alternative plans can be made usingthere existing hardware, however the performance wont be as good as just upgrading hardware,but as long as you get the job done, which is the most important thing, and you dont want tohave crashing programs, annoying pop up messages telling you You out of Memory, etc Sometimes computers with very limited memory, when doing photo-editing for example, pop upsuch messages, however, I only received such errors when going over the Gigabyte Mark.

Please refer to your computer motherboard manual on memory expansion cards, if you want toupgrade your physical memory (DIMMs, DDRs, and DDR2s etc etc). Also if you want to get agraphics card, please refer to your manual what slots you have before purchasing (PCI /AGP /PCI-E etc), most manuals list recommendedcards for a particular motherboard. If you notsure take it to a dealer/technician sinceclocking speeds differ on different machinesas well, this is measured in MHz. The memorycards have no external ports leading to theoutside of the casing, and are short in heightand long in length and fit into themotherboard slots with clips. (Sorry I cannotcopy a scanned image due to copyrightreasons)

How do I know how much physicalmemory I have?

1) Go to the start Menu and click Helpand Support Please follow the blue

circles as they indicate where you must click...

2) Click on : Use tools to view yourcomputer and diagnose problems :


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3) Click on : My Computer Information in side menu:

4) Click on: View general system information about this computer + other links formore info...


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There you will receive tabular information about your computer, and your RAM & Memory will bedisplayed for example


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The other links provide more details such Graphics cards etc especially when you click findinformation about hardware link.

A quick way to see if you checking if yourgraphics (most of the time onboard) is

using your memory cards:

1) Right click on My Computer on the startmenu or if you have it on your desktop, andclick Properties and wait for the dialoguebox/window to appear.

This dialogue window should appear somethinglike this with the heading System Properties :

Under the heading Computer: you will see avery short summery of your computer, yourCPU type and speed , as well as your memory

size. If this size is not the same as your physicalmemory but a few digits left, which means thatyour memory is being shared with your onboardgraphics, if you have a graphics card, you needto fix settings in your BIOS, please refer to yourmotherboard manual for that, as BIOS systemsdiffer a little on different computers. Thismemory is best if not shared.

Note: Best RAM for skinning is 512 MB and up, for speed and performance

Now you know what RAM your PC has andsome other basic hardware information aboutyour PC, from Windows, you know and see if you need to upgrade. The best choice like Isaid earlier is to get extra RAM slot cards, butif you dont have money to just out of theblue buy memory cards, you can set yourVirtual Memory settings. Virtual memory isusing your hard drive as a memory device.The virtual memory is saved as a PagingFile . This page file is hidden, and cannot beenseen by windows explorer, but you can see itin DOS, or when browsing your hard drivewhen its placed in another computer, or whenloading another operating system, such asLinux Live on DVD or CD, however the otheroperating systems do not utilize it, its calledsomething like pagefile.sys .

Note : Please its essential to defrag yourhard drive(s) before setting the virtualmemory, as we dont want the page file in bitsand pieces all over the hard drive which wouldmake it run slowly, and if working with large


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3) Then click the advanced tab on that window that popped up when you clicked thesettings button. ( best to choose Adjust for performance for very slow PCs, before selecting

Advanced tab, your visual styles will go to windows classic mode, or you can do custom settings if you dont want to loose your XP visual style)

4) Make sure that the radio buttonsfor programs is set for each thetext boxes. Then in the virtualmemory textbox, click the changebutton, as your PC has quite a lowchoice roughly 370Mbs to 600Mbsroughly. ( Please read theseinstructions carefully)

5) You then see this window abovecalled Virtual Memory with yourhard drives displayed in the whitesection. If you have one hard driveyou will just see C: Your flashdrives will also appear here, andyou can also use your flash disks!(Warning: if using flash disk for virtual memory, remember to unset the virtual memory allocation before removing it -unsetting is done by selecting the

No Page file option, the by clicking

the set button ) To Set your virtualmemory by clicking on a drive, andchoosing custom size, fill in the size,and click set . The best size forskinning and large layered photoediting in-between 1GB - 2GBs(especially when using Corel PhotoShop Paint ), I have a largersize for heavy rendering in Poserwhere the render memory reaches6GBs of page file when rendering inthe Poser 5 Firefly renderer for largescenes with lots of figures and stuff.Once you have set your VirtualMemory click all the O.K. buttons of the windows until you reach yourdesktop, you may be prompted torestart your computer.

(Note : If you using two drives like me here, and have to remove the one drive, please remember to unset the virtual memory on the secondary drive before removing hard drive, PC Boot

problems might occur if you dont )


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Now that you have set your virtual memory, windows will operate fine when using the page files +physical memory. However you can improve on the process by installing a 3 rd party memorymanagement program. The one I use and helps a lot when doing massive renders is MAX MEM. I usequite an old version, and here I get to manage my release of physical memory to the page file manually,especially when working with GBs of memory. However there may be better programs out on the web,but I dont know any. Max MEM looks something like this. It runs as an icon in system tray, and uses

very little memory, however when it manages memory, it can cause slow pauses, while its refreshingthe Physical memory. I use the aggressive when rendering.

To view you page file usage + memory and CPU press ALT + CTRL + DEL all together, and choose theperformance tab. When using MAX MEM it stretches the page file, peak, which prevents the Poser 5 outOf Memory Error. You have to click Aggressive when the graph on system tray goes red, and this dumpsthe physical memory manually into the page file.


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I have a summery print out from Ashampoo Winoptimizer containing the percentage use of my harddrives, and there you can see how much percentage your page file uses in the total used space of thehard drive(s).

Safe refresh rate settings for eyes (set screen refresh rate >= 70Hz)As you know, making skins can be time consuming, and most of the time, your eyes are fixed tothe screen of your computer. Often you look very close to the screen, moving the mouse slowlywhen working, to prevent an error with your hand on the mouse, since you not working with apen. Actually if you have a drawing pad, it would help a lot, and make the ease of use whenediting and cutting out textures and objects and even drawing on them. Since most people have amouse, it takes longer to perform the task. The safest refresh rate for using a computermonitor is 70Hz and above which I recommend , since my eyes are a little more sensitive thanordinary peoples eyes. It is indicated that 60Hz is recommended, but I find it uncomfortable, as Isee that the screen appears to flash fast at me, if it is set to 60Hz, and I cannot work properly.

Some monitors which are old, when using a larger resolution, the refresh rate becomes less. Suchas if your resolution is 1024 X 768 some monitors can only display at that resolution at 60Hz, its anice common resolution, but the 60Hz kills me. People, who may not be sensitive to this, mayexperience sore eyes, headaches and even nausea when using the computer for a long time. It isrecommended to go down to 800 X 600 and set refresh rate to 70Hz or above. Fortunately myscreen can accommodate 1024 X 768 at 70Hz, sometimes graphics cards play a role in this, mostof the time it is the monitor. I recommend 70Hz for all, and even better if your monitor + graphicscard can go higher. I play games at 800 X 600 with the refresh rate at 85Hz. And only find a slightchange when I exit the game


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S K I N N I N G T U T O R I A L

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Here I will give some steps how to adjust your screen refresh rate to help you work at ease in thelong hours of skinning. I alsorecommend that you have a 15minute brake from one hourwhen using the PC, this helps

prevent you causing errors fromtiredness, and also enhancesyour mind to enhance itscreativeness, where flows of ideas and solutions, and bettermethods appear.

1) Right click on yourdesktop , and a menuwill appear, and selectProperties in the menu(most of you know thesesteps when changingwallpapers, screensaversand such )

2) Then you will get a dialogue window that looks like this, called Display Properties . Onthis dialogue window click the Settings Tab


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3) Then you get this dialogue window, here you will see your number of monitors if you havemore than one hooked up to your machine, but if there is only one, you will only see one,your screen resolution, and your colour quality. Click on the advanced button.

4) Then you get a new Dialoguewindow, and then click the

Monitor tab.

5) Then in the Monitor settings textbox, you go to Screen refreshrate , and select 70Hz or above,then click all the apply and O.k.buttons. If you have 60Hz, go backby clicking cancel and lower yourscreen resolution, by sliding thebar to the left in the Screenresolution textbox, and click apply,and your screen resolutionchanges, then repeat the previoussteps.

Now you have set your screen with acomfortable refresh rate which now willhelp you work a little bit better with easeand wont have to worry about head aches,sore eyes and nausea when creating yourskins


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Managing your workspace for skinningHere I will tell you how to organize your working folder for making skins, as well as adjusting theworkspace in programs which would make working through them easier. First we get to create afolder to work in, where you can make more than one skin, and then best when working on a skin

to work on the desktop, and when you happy with your results save it to your skin working folder,

this will prevent making errors, if you get tiered, or overwriting work, as well you have a backup,encase you make boo boos.

Create a folder like skins, or skin edit, in youre my Documents folder, or straight into one of youre your hard drives( best to save it out of the My Documents folder, since if something terriblehappens to your operating system due to a power failure for example, youre My Documents arenot retrievable unless you use DOS, or place your hard drive in another computer, or use Linuxon DVD or CD to copy the files over onto another drive or flash disk or burn them to CD using aseparate CD burning drive. They will be too big for floppy disks.

In there you create folders where you will save your skin you working with, skins that you will useas examples to follow and the templates, also keep the zip files of texture sample body parts,which you are going to use to create your skins (first a plain skin texture that is a skin texturethats plain with no post designs, and post tattoos, body art etc.) The elfskin folder which I namedis where I saved my completed skins, still in the Photoshop, layered format. Its always handy tokeep them, which would make future editing and fixing up easier, once this folder gets a certainsize its recommended you burn to CD/DVD for backup as separate files or zipped up.


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Now that you have created a folder to do and save your skinning in, if you purchased or received askin samples file with just photos of body parts, save a copy into this folder as well, you can seehere I have the rendero_Josefina_355 zip file saved here, and when you extract the contents, Iwill show you the best way to do so later on in this tutorial, which would make work easier.


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Set up editing Program(s) WorkspacesSetting up Corel Photo Shop Paint

The first program I would set up is Corel Photo Shop Paint , since this program I have

been using most of my life and very familiar with. It was originally made by Jasc Software andCorel seemed to have bought the software from them or whatever, like with Poser, Metacreations

Curious Labs e-Frontier. When you installed the program, and load it up you will notice thatyour work space is quite small, a way to clear it up, is to go to the browser window below, hoveryour mouse over the browser bar, and push it into the work space. This will pull it out of the toolareas, also close the help section, this is also taking up workspace, and when you need help, youcan always recall it from the Help menu, and so as browse from the browse button for the inbuiltBrowser. The application should be more or less set out like this, with more workspace, and lessthings cluttering the screen like so you can close the browser, and open it again using thebrowser button on top tool bar.


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Setting up Adobe Photoshop

The second program I would set up is Adobe Photoshop and its the second bestprogram I have been working with, however some functions I prefer to do in Corel Paint

Shop Pro, and I would discuss this later. One thing I dont like about this program when it loads by

default is that when it loads in maximized mode, the tool dialogues/boxes/pallets are all over yourwork space, and get in the way. So the best thing to solve this problem is minimise it and arrangeyour workspace like so:


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Now you can work withoutaccidentally clicking on the toolsunexpectedly. Once you have

arranged it is recommended to saveyour workspace, by going toWindow in the menu bar, clickWindow , and then openWorkspace submenu. Click Save, type in the name you wish, andclick the save button. You canalways recall your workspacesetting by going here:

Window/Workspace/yourworkspace name under theother menu text, for example in thepicture on the text Zanabest is myworkspace name.

Setting up Corel Photo PaintThis program does not have all the functions and features Photoshop and Photo Shop

Paint have. This program, you can still create skins in as with other programs not covered in the

tutorial. I dont think any adjustments of workspace need to be made so I left it as it is, likewisewith other programs for photo editing.


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Creating a Plain skin hide...

Here I will be doing some steps on how to create a plain skin texture, that is a hide, without body art, tattoos and such, just a plain skin texture for you to use on a poser

figure, or use later to add some tattoos, body art

s you can see the picture on the rightlooks like a skin that has been taken off ahuman if they had been skinned alive ,and looks very freaky and scary, well

when I first thought of skinning to create a plainskin, I wondered if these were taken from deadpeople. You can be relieved that this not so, andactually taken from photos of a naked human beingand then the photos cut out and then pasted over atemplate and shaped to proportion, and paintedaround, to get the skin as realistic as possible.

First I will tell you with various programs how to cutaround the photos of a naked human, then save thecut out pieces into a folder. Then take one piece ata time, and fit it over the template, stretching it,morphing it, or pushing it with what ever tools areavailable to use in Corel Photo paint. Until youcomplete the skin and then paste all the layerstogether, load it on a figure, and test render to getthe overlapping sections from appearing to overlap.If this is not solved the figure would look like she has been sown up like a Frankenstein monster.The Elfy below is using the skin texture thats displayed on this page.

Chapter 2


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Cutting out body parts.Ooh sounds scary, well no; its only cutting the body parts out of photos, first of all, where do weget these photos of body parts from? You can take photos of yourself naked, or if you afraid of doing that since your body may have a few imperfections, you can get photos of those who were

willing to have there body photos taken, and these can be obtained from rendersosity(http://www.renderosity.com) or other 3D graphic resource/community sites. These people or

merchants sell these photos, I am not to sure if there are any free photo-resources for you to cutout body parts. If you dont have money, ask people around, if you can trade in something or if you have friends, they can give it to as a gift item.

Once you have you zip file of photo-shots, unzip them in a new folder in your skinning folderworkspace/directory you are going to work in, not the desktop for this. Make sure you dontaccidentally delete or damage your zip file, if you do, make sure you have it backed up.Rendersosity does back up your purchases/gifts from friends. I unzip them in my folder calledskinedit.

Once you extracted the files into a folder, open the folder and see if all the files are in (they shouldhave been all extracted, if you automatically or even manually extracted them one by one.


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Open the first image and it would load in your Photoshop main window, and then click ActualPixels , to enlarge it to its actual size.


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Once you have enlarged the photo you canstart cutting it out anywhere (removingthe body [body parts]) from thebackground. If your background is notmore or less balanced (same colour/ photo

was taken behind a screen of some kind)It would be more difficult to remove it.

Thats why when people make movies, andwhen doing trick photography, the actorsact behind a prominent green screen which helps the movieproducers/nowadays software to cut theactors out and place them on a computerrendered background/or separately filmedbackground. For example: cuttingSuperwoman out of the green room scene,into a scene filmed by a camera in aplain/helicopter.

In order to do this we use the backgrounderaser tool + eraser tool (for more difficulterasing). The image on the left will giveyou an idea where these tools are situated.Lets first select the Background Eraser tool. Then erase in the background area. If you find the figure/ body parts beingerased undo, by clicking Edit/ Step

Backward . Adjust settings, and then repeat continuously until you have the satisfied results.


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Once you have found the satisfied settings, you can enlarge the eraser brush pixels, to get a largererasing coverage, or continue as it is.

You continue down and around the image.if tiny sections of body gets cut out dont worry, butmake sure it is not too pronounced, if it is, toggle the Tolerance , until you reach a point where thebackground changes profoundly. Like here:


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Now it gets tricky, here you would have to use the standard eraser, or very low tolerance, or adjustthe settings again. (This is where it becomes an art rather than a science). Fortunately, we usingthe recommended program for the task and there is magic involved Go to the toolbox on theleft of screen where you got background eraser, and click on magic eraser then click onthe stubborn background section vwala, va va voom!

Try not to use the magic eraser on the previous background colour unless its oppositeto the skin colour , however if your stubborn background section was similar to the skin colour,you would have to have used the manual eraser Eraser tool tool in the toolbox . And it doestake a time, and its an art.

You could have also use the selection too to create a selection around the body part, and have asteady hand and trace and hit the Delete key to clear out the selection. There are severalmethods you could have attempted. The key here is to think, what would be the best option. Onceyou have successfully cut around the body or body part image, there will still be some

background This can then be erased by the manual eraser (using large pixel size).The body part that was cut out is suited for a V3 type character or a Ziza Faery fromhttp://www.thorneworks.com


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Well you do this with all the body part photos . And save them in .psd format (as it canbe edited also in the other programs) ( maximize compatibility must be checked also ).However, you might come across some which you need to get in another way, such as the eyes,lacrimals, tongue and inner mouth. Which can be cut out in various ways using the standard


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eraser, or selection tools, or the magic eraser or background eraser? The best option is selectionstoo cut main section out, or crop it up, then with the standard eraser , with hardness setto a bit soft, with soft edges, cut /erase around the body part . This is also when it becomesmore of an art than a science, since a lot of time and precision needs to be focused on this, andone can only get this right is by trial and error , doing tasks, if errors are made, step back, and

try again repeatedly until the results are satisfied. Hence thats why I recommend Photoshop andCorel Photoshop paint, there is a lot more tools, such as background eraser, magic eraser etcwhich saves time and effort. Corel Photopaint is a pain in the ass to use, and takes longer to get atask completed, but with less desirable results than Photoshop and Corel Photoshop paint. You willsee and understand me more as you read through this tutorial.


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Cutting up body parts with Corel Photoshop Paint

This is the second best program to do this specific task , and save the FINAL results in .psd files if you want to work adjacent with Adobe Photoshop . It is recommended, to saveworking files in .pspimage format as it mysteriously uses less memory, and save thecomplete final result as a .psd.

I actually made my cut-outs in this program, since, I was not aware of adobes fascinatingbackground removal tools; as I was still getting acquainted to Photoshop, and have been broughtup using this software since 1997 when it was Jasc paint Shop Pro. However, this program also hasa background eraser , just slightly inferior to Adobes Photoshop. It also has a standard eraser tool. But where Corel Photoshop paint leaves adobe Photoshop in the dust, is its morphing tool ,which we will use when pasting the cut body parts over the template. Where Photoshop does nothave it, but alternatively use a push tool, and erase and the desired results become less. Thatswhy I like working with a selection of these photo editing programs, and use all the good points outof them all. Open up Corel Photoshop Paint, and click browse, and browse to the folder where thephotos are. Lets open up the same one we did in Adobe Photoshop.

Open the image, and select the background eraser tool.


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Do this with all the images, until youhave just the cut out body parts,and save them as .psd files (recommended for switching betweenAdobe & Corel) or the .pspimage format

if you decided to keep to this programHowever, there is no magic eraser tool in this program to remove hecticbackground pixels such as the foot stool.The same method can be used inPhotoshop and Corel Photo Paint forcutting out the tongue, ears, teeth etctoo like so (make sure you adjusttolerance, and stuff, so you dont erasethe object you wanting, while using thebackground eraser, sometimes it can bequite timely depending how close thecolours of the pixels in the background

are to that of the object. If it becomes impossible , use the standard eraser tool , and adjust

the settings, of the brush, and erase slowly, and try not to erase the object you want.


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For cutting out eyes, you use the cropping tool, like that of Photoshop.

You use these methods to get all the body parts, cut out, including nails as well; dont forget thenails.and teeth.

Cutting up body parts with Corel Photo Paint

This program is rather limited and primitive to the others, and this is similar to other programs,that may not have an eraser background brush, and to be used if you dont have Corel PhotoshopPaint or Adobe Photoshop, but stuck with a program like this. Open the same image as the others.


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Now that you have loaded you need to erase it, but first you need it as a layer, as if you had toerase it, it wont leave a transparent background, but white. Go to file, and copy image, andpaste it as an object , so you have it as a layer, and background around body parts aretransparent.


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Then in the side bar called objects , delete thelayer labelled as Background. Once you havedone that, select the eraser tool and starterasing You would have to manuallyerase , carefully like using the standard eraser

to in the other programs, and can take longerto complete the task . You do this with all thebody parts, yup, I know its slow, but you wouldeventually have cut out everything, and it isrecommended to save the files in .PSDformat , since you may want to get hold of theother programs later, also PSD format isbest recognised.

For objects like the eyes, its thesame as the other programs,using the crop tool but uses

Crop to selection choice in the

menu.

Now you have cut out all the body parts, make sure you have all the parts cut outaccording to the template files.


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Please note to reduce the file size of this template, I will focus on the best programs for the job. If you have extra plug-ins for programs that are not mentioned, but can do the following, you mayuse the plug-in alternative.

Making a hide (pasting body parts over template).

Making hide with Corel Photoshop Paint

This is the best program , to use for this particular task, the reason being is that it contains thefantastic Warp Brush , where you paste the body parts, set the layer transparency, erase partswith standard eraser, and get to push warp the parts in line with the lines of the template ,to improve accuracy of the hide. I will onlycover this section inCorel Paint Shop pro,only, since its the

quickest, and to keepmanual short and its filesize small, all you do iscopy and paste thebody parts over thetemplate , cut aroundopen parts , and thenpaint under thepasted layers with atextured brush , which isthe traditional, andstandard method ,unless one has amorph brush plug-infor Photoshop.

First open the template (wire frame) or an existing skin done by someone else, or someoneelses skin you are trying to imitate. First we are going to get started on the head. Since the headis easier to do and learn from first.


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Set the head dimensions to:: by going to the menu :: Image Resize and wait for adialogue window to open and enter the pixel sizes as follows, make sure pixels is selected, andaspect ratio is turned off. Enter the pixel size of 2400X1632 to make sure the head ratio textureis the same of a body texture size of 3000X4000. As we want the head skin texture map to

match that of the body . A lot of artists do not take this ratio proportion into consideration, whichthen leaves a higher quality, larger head texture in comparison to the body. Once you have resizedthe head texture, save it as a .psdimage where you can alternatethrough the different programs, or.pspimage, and save the final skinas a .psd for memory purposes.Open the cut out head , andpaste and shape it to fit on thetemplate, also make the layertransparent , so that you can seewhere you see that you match theeyes with the templates eyes, nosewith the templates nose, andmouth with the templates mouth.Then we are going to use the warpand eraser brush to fit the headon, and to match up with thetemplate lines to be moreaccurate.The blue arrows indicate the


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tools to be used. The Red arrows, is where we would be using the morph brush . The greenarrows, is where to erase with a blunt eraser smooth edges, blurry edged eraser.

You then addsome more cut outs , such as the side of the head , for the cheeks , and neck sides . If youonly have one side photo, you can create a mirror image of the photo , for the other side. Hereis a full page on what goes where etc With working with the head , its always best to startfrom the centre , and work your way out , then do the tongue, ears etc.


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To fill up the skin , cut a section out of the back (body part ) and past it under all the layers ,then with a paint brush texture paint around edges, so that edges are all same colour andtexture to prevent sow-up effect .


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The reason for painting around the edges is so that, the figure does not appear or look like it issown up at the edges, where map edges and corners of the hide meet.


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Now we will start with the body , now that we done the head. Open the body template, and setthe dimensions to 3000X4000 . Once you have done that we start pasting body parts on it, thesame way we had done the face parts . But first starting from the breasts , and workingoutwards to the abdomen, back, arms, then thighs, legs then feet , and then finishing of withthe hands and nails. Use same methods as you used in the face , by Warping (red ) to

template, and warping to stretch out and using the eraser (green) brush , to blend outparts into other parts when you add them.


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Place all the body parts, in the steps of 1 to 14 order, you can also mirror one section, tosave time . (Hint/Note :: Construct 1 side, and mirror the verged layers to the other side ::improves texturing area round the back, of the figure, also saves time.)


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texture on V3 in the material room, by selecting each body part with the eye dropper , and addtexture in the Diffuse colour, do this all over the figure, and test render around it to find the linesof meeting texture points, and paint over, save, save copy jpg, which you load on the figure. Youcan also do the same with DAZ Studio (Actually test rendering works quicker in DAZ studio)


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Make sure you adjust the lights when making testing renders, so you can see if there are sectionsyou need to brush over, so that texture edges meet and blend and do not look like skin cuts etc

Once all your renders and patching up with the paint brush is finished, you are now ready to useyour skin textures permanently . Save skins, and keep them in a safe place , and export the.jpg files to be used in the 3D applications. Put these files in your Poser/Runtime/texturesdirectory, in its own folder. To create the other objects such as teeth and gums, eyes is quitesimple compared with the Body texture you done already ( paste objects, morph them intoplace ). I will give you a brief outline on what goes where etc... Use same methods .


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You can edit it in notepad , change the image file names to the file names of your skin ,but make sure that you have tested it in Poser this one you are going to alter, as it may load agreen colour tone over your skin, making it appear green as an example, that it was when youloaded an existing mat pose file, that it was white , and not cream/olive/pink etc Best to use adownloaded Goth skin mat pose file , as it is set to white that would load a greyish-skinish

white skin texture.Save your altered mat pose file into a Directory of your wish inside the Pose directoryIf you want to change the icon picture of your mat pose file , we will do so in P3DOExplorer , a browsing program to browse and manage your poser and DAZ directories.

Or you can use this program called MAT POSE edit , and has V3 M3 templates builtin , which looks like this.

Here you just change your texture map directories to your own , or click the button tobrowse for it, and click apply and work through the steps, starting from Torso all the way down tothe bottom of the list. Save the file in your directory which is in the Pose directory .

Some of your poser icons need to be changed , in order to do this you need 3DPOExplorer first load the figure in poser , load the mat pose file on it , and render itin a small square . Save the square to the desktop . Open P3DO Explorer .. Loadthe thumbnail you created from your desktop to the windows clipboard .


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BUMP MAPS:: To create bump maps, half the size of the texture the original skin texture, and setit to grey scale, and save it as plainskinbump.jpg. The reason why the bump skin texture is half thesize than that of the colour skin texture it is going to accommodate the bump effect on is that itreduces memory and render-time. You can have the original texture size bump map, in with thereduced sized one, and only use the large one for close up single figure renders. Its best always toset the bump as 0.2 in the poser material room, sometimes best as 0.1.


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Tattooing and Changing skin etc...

Here I will be going through some basic steps in tattooing and texturing the plain skins, and changing the skin texture and such, since there is a lot to do here, since the boundaries are limitless, there are certain aspects to take intoconsideration when texturing your plain skin

lves in the picture on the right,there skin texture was done byme, where the tattoos wheredrawn on an altered plain skin

texture. The plain skin texture is the onewhich I made, and changed its colouring,and then put the tattoos on + the dark elf skin veins + the dark elf spots which runalong there necks to the side of therebodies. The part where it gets tricky whentexturing, tattooing is where you go to theedges of the skin. This can be solved bymirror imaging the layer you working on.

First we are going to go through the stepsof getting your plain skin texture, andchanging it to a Goth skin texture, asgothic skin textures can be easily changedin Poser with using the bucket tool .Like setting the skin from normal skincolour to odd skin colours and tones, suchas green/ lilac/ blue etc: depending onyour character. However you can also setthese values on the skin texture itself if you wish not to make it a Gothic skincolour.

But I am going to make first a gothic skincolour, add some tattoos, and some other

skin features to create anunusual character.

Note: This chapter all done inCorel Photoshop Paint

Chapter 3

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Changing the plain skin texture colour.

Load your plain skin inthe program you wishto use; I stick with myfavourite program .Please use the originalskin texture youmade , and make sureall the layers aremerged, since we arenot editing eachindividual body part, andalso to keep memoryusage inconsideration , to freeup some memory usefor making our workgo a little faster.We want to change theskin to a gothic colour ,in order to do so; we justneed to change the HUE/SATURATION. We

dont want the gothic skin look 100% whitish grey, but must have a taste of skin tone in it, a faintskin tone colour, like that of a vampire, or Gothic person.Now we have a gothic skin texture, andsave it as gothicbody.psd orgothicbody.psd. You can save this as

another skin texture into your posertextures directory and create a mat posefile to load this skin as a separate skin. Thismust be in a jpg format. Do the same withthe head, and others if you wish.(Extra:: to change the skin colour, youcan move the Hue slider , this would

change the skin tone to green, blue,pink, lilac etc.)


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Now we have our Gothic skin,and we would like to addsome tattoos , then someother effects to make the skinfeel unusual as we wish. First

we would start with the body,but first we need to drawsome tattoos , you can drawtattoos in Corel Draw, MangaStudio, even MS Paint , oryou can download tattootextures from rendersosity ,and other places. But to be onthe creative side, lets decideto draw some tattoos, uniqueones. I prefer manga studio, asI like drawing with the mousewith it

Save your tattoos as .psd files, which you can use Photoshop or Corel Photoshop to put them on the skin , and can usethem for future skins. Now open up the program you wish to use to tattoo the skin and open theskin, and lets start putting tattoos on , please keep in mind about the edges of the skin ,thats where it gets tricky . Lets put the tattoos in the easy places first . To put tattoos intricky spots such as put a tattoo on the back of the figure, you have to keep this in mind To dothis we do this::


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Now we have the tattoos on, now we want to modify the skin , so that the nails are dark, aswell as the nipples , which are already covered over by the tattoos on breasts. Save the file, andmerge all the tattoos in one layer and hide it , and open the plain skin file , and erasearound elements that we want to keep. I prefer to do this in Adobe Photoshop.

Once you erased the elements you want, you paste the layer over your skin texture and edit itaccordingly, I decided to make them purple, since purple is my favourite colour .


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Move the layer down and merge it with the bottom layer . Now we want to add some veinsubstances on the skin , you may want to be different and add scales. In order to do this we goto the Photoshop resources CD, and browse about the textures, and select the one we want to useto make veins.

Take this texture, and make it transparent , and we will modify it and put over the figure , thiscan be very time consuming . Use the morph brush to morph it over the body . Give it

colour by colourising it, and then use hue saturation and lightness to make it purple.


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Now unhide the tattoos layer , and well, If you wanted to do scales, but this can be done loadinga Photoshop texture into a brush and painting over selected areas , on a new layer , andthen change its colourings , this file is starting to get big, so I have to cut it down a little, so herewhat it looks so far. It does not matter if you got your veins or scales looking different, thats thewhole point.

And we use the same steps to do the face


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Yes its something you never seen before , now create a pose mat file and render your figure It should look similar to this if you tried to imitate thistutorial.

There we go now thats done, you know quite a bit withskinning It is very time consuming as you probably already discovered , thats why its bestto save your work , if you should want to create a new skin, to re-use some elements , it alsohelps you develop a certain trademark which hangs about your artwork. I think thats all I am


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going to put in about skinning, since this file(tutorial) is getting huge, and I had to cut out a lot of steps in the last session, to keep the file size small.

As you will see that all these techniques can be used to skin other figures , make sure youhave there templates, or use the skins that came with the objects as templates , or if you

dont have templates, you can create templates with UV Mapper , with simple objects andsimple figures. V3 is not a good figure to get a template out of UV Mapper.This is UV Mapper, what you do, is load the .obj file in, and it will generate a template . Forexample I loaded the poser 5 dolphinhi obj file in and it generates this::

So the process of skinning the dolphin is the same as skinning a person, which was more difficult.Here you can get dolphin textures from your favourite wallpapers, or scan from posters in yourroom etc and stick them on these templates.


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Summery and extra notes

ou can now create some skins now that you have gone through this tutorial, and use itas a guide. It is recommended you print it out, and bind the pages together. In order tocreate skins, first you cut out the photos of body parts, and paste them over thetemplate, and morph them into position, and erase around them gently. Until you got allthe body parts pasted on, set the background using the back body part, and paint

around the edges. It will help if you do one side, and mirror it to the other to save time and effort.

To tattoo, get your drawn tattoos and paste them on the body (and mirror when necessary, as youknow the body is bilateral), taking note of the body texture edges which are the difficult spots. Todraw textures over the figure such as putting scales on the skin, load the texture map into thebrush and paint away. As you know it can be a time consuming thing, please take rests every sooften as you can get tiered to take a brake.

The Elvin chant for Working Happily

Live happily and joyfully forget the pain and hate.Always love all persons, especially the Elvin and Fae kind.

If you all alone in this world, remember there is always Love.If you alone make peace in the silence of your warm loving heart.Speak your mind and heart quietly and clearly, be fair and equal.

Listen to others, respect there beliefs if they dont cause harm and end life.Avoid loud, aggressive, destructive persons; they can break your Elvin spirit.

If forced to work with such persons, let the light shine and flow out of your heart .Warm there cold dark souls, dont let them drain you and take away your warmth.

Never compare yourself with others but learn from them to improve yourself.Take note of others good points, help them improve, never dwell on there bad points.

Enjoy your creativity, allow it to grow, use it to help others, make the world beautiful.Put love into your work, as it reflects to those who look at and use your work.Avoid business affairs that can be harmful to your character and personality.You are a child of the universe, and unique as a grain of sand, a flower child.

Placed in whatever world as a purpose, and worth more than gold and diamonds.Connected to the vastness of the universe, which connects you to everything

This connection helps you achieve the impossible and make it possible.Dont end the flow of life, look after the natural living things

The planet you are on is a living thing too, as well as the sun it orbits.

Let your creativity and love flow, glow and shine forever.May you live long and be happy even in hard times.

:::::::::::: Word of The Dark Elf: Zana, for All Faery and Elvin Kind ::::::::::::

Chapter 4

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The Back Page

Of The

Skinning Manual.